The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."

Tuesday, September 26, 2017

In fact, the contours of a next round of volatility and
violence are already visible.

SDF fighters raise their flag in Taqba after retaking it from IS, image via Wikipedia

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 595, September 25, 2017

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Several indicators have
sparked optimism that tensions in the Middle East may be starting to
subside. The problem is that many of those indicators are speculative,
and none holds out the possibility of a permanent resolution of multiple
problems. In fact, the contours of a next round of volatility and
violence are already visible.

Optimists see hopeful signs that the Middle East may be exiting from a
dark tunnel of violence, civil war, sectarian strife, and debilitating
regional rivalries.

The Islamic State (IS) is on the cusp of territorial defeat in Syria
and Iraq. Saudi Arabia may be groping for an exit from its devastating
military intervention in Yemen. The Gulf states are embarking on
economic and social reform aimed at preparing for the end of oil.

Haltingly, the Gulf states may be forced to find a face-saving
solution to the more than three-month-old crisis that has pitted a
UAE-Saudi-led alliance against Qatar. There may even be an effort to
dial down tension between the kingdom and Iran.

Hamas, the
Islamist faction that controls Gaza, said it is willing to negotiate
with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas about joint rule of
the Strip and move towards long overdue elections.

At first glance, these do appear to be reasons for optimism. But
don’t hold your breath. Optimists are basing their hopes on shifting
sands and tentative suggestions that the protagonists may be looking for
ways out of the malaise.

The more sobering reality is that none of the indicators involve
actions that would tackle the root causes of the Middle East’s multiple
conflicts and problems. In fact, some of the solutions tossed around
amount to little more than window dressing, while others set the stage
for the next phase of conflict and strife.

Talks between the feuding Palestinian factions have repeatedly
failed. It is not clear whether Hamas would now be ready as part of a
deal to put its armed wing under Mr. Abbas’s control – a key demand of
the Palestinian president that the Islamists have so far rejected. It
also remains to be seen how Israel would respond. Israel, together with
the US, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, sees Hamas as a
terrorist organization.

Beyond Palestine, the contours of future conflict are already discernible. If Myanmar’s Rohingya are the 21st century’s rallying cry of the Muslim world, the Kurds could be one of its major fault lines.

The disputes over territory, power, and resources among Sunni
Muslims, Shiites, and Kurds that fueled the rise of IS in Iraq are
resurfacing with its demise. In a twist of irony, a recent poll showed Sunnis were for the first time more positive about Iraq’s future than the country’s majority Shiites.

The reconstruction
of Sunni cities in the north destroyed by the fight against IS will be
key to maintaining a semblance of Iraqi unity. With no signs of massive
reconstruction gaining momentum, old wounds that have driven
insurgencies for more than a decade could reignite IS in new forms. “All
the writing is on the wall that there will be another IS,” said former Iraqi foreign minister and Kurdish politician Hoshyar Zebari.

The initial flash in the pan threatens to be the fact that the Iraqi
Kurds are certain to vote for independence in a unilateral referendum
scheduled for September 25. If the independence issue did not provide
enough explosive in and of itself, the Kurds’ insistence on including in
the referendum the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk and
adjacent areas further fueled the fire.

The referendum and the dispute over Kirkuk reopen the question of
what Iraqi Kurdistan’s borders are. They will do so even if the Kurds
opt not to hold an immediate vote on independence and remain part of an
Iraqi federation for the time being.

The issue could blow a further hole into Iraq’s already fragile existence as a united nation state.
Iraqi President Haider al-Abadi has denounced the referendum. His
efforts to persuade the Iraqi parliament to fire Kirkuk governor
Najmaldin Karim for backing the poll, as well as calls for parliament to
withdraw confidence in Iraqi President Fuad Masum and sack ministers
and other senior officials of Kurdish descent, could push the Kurds over
the edge.

Iraqi military officials as well as the Iranian-backed Shiite
militias that are aligned with the military have vowed to prevent the
referendum from being held in Kirkuk. “Kirkuk belongs to Iraq. We would
by no means give up on Kirkuk even if this were to cause major
bloodshed,” said Ayoub Faleh aka Abu Azrael, the commander of Imam Ali Division, an Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militia.

Nor will the fight necessarily be contained to Kirkuk. Kurdish and
Iraqi government forces are vying for control of areas from which IS has
been driven out, stretching westwards along the length of northern
Iraq. Mr. Al-Abadi warned that he would intervene militarily if the referendum, which he described as unconstitutional, provoked violence.

Add to that the ganging up on the Kurds by Iran, Turkey, and the US.
The US is backing the Iraqi government, though it was Washington that
put Kurdistan on course towards independence when it allowed the
autonomous enclave to emerge under a protective no-fly zone that kept
the forces of Saddam Hussein at bay. (Breaking with the US and its Arab
allies, Israel has endorsed Kurdish independence.)

Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan and Iranian al-Quds force
commander Qassem Soleimani have warned the Kurds on visits to Iraqi
Kurdistan to back away from the referendum. Iran has threatened to close
its borders with the region.

Describing the referendum as “a matter of national security,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said,
“no one should have doubt that we will take all the necessary steps in
this matter.” Turkey fears that Kurdish independence would spur
secessionist aspirations among its own Kurds, who account for up to 20%
of its population. It also suspects that an independent Kurdistan would
harbor Turkish Kurdish insurgents already operating from the region.

Mr. Abadi alluded to possible Turkish and/or Iranian military intervention to
prevent the emergence of an independent Kurdistan by suggesting that
the referendum would be “a public invitation to the countries in the
region to violate Iraqi borders.” He said, “The Turks are very angry
about it because they have a large Kurdish population inside Turkey and
they feel that their national security is threatened because it is a
huge problem for them. And, of course, the Iranians are on the same
line.”

The Kurds are hoping an end to the war in Syria will leave them with
an Iraq-style autonomous region on the Turkish border – an aspiration
that Turkey, like Iraq, vehemently opposes. The Kurds, who have been the
target of strikes by the Turkish air force, hope to benefit from the
force’s shortage of pilots resulting from mass purges in the wake of
last year’s failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. (To make
up the pilot shortfall, the air force last month ordered all former fighter pilots flying for Turkish airlines to report for service.)

The Kurds may provide the first flashpoint for another round of
volatility and violence, but there are others. Sectarian and other
ethnic divisions are likely to wrack Iraq and Syria once the current
round of fighting subsides.

As it tries to find a face-saving exit from its ill-fated invasion of
Yemen, which has pushed the country to the edge of the abyss, Riyadh
will have to cope with a populous country on its border, many of whose
citizens harbor deep anger at the devastation and human suffering caused
by the Saudis – consequences that will take years to reverse.

Similarly, the three-month-old rift between Qatar and an alliance led
by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates is likely to leave deep
scars that will hamper integration among the six states that make up the
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the Middle East’s only functioning
regional organization prior to the crisis. The failure of talks between
Qatar and its detractors, mediated by US President Donald Trump, even
before they got started, suggests that a resolution to the crisis is
nowhere in sight.

Coping with the fallout of the Qatar crisis and the Yemen war simply
adds to Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s woes as he prepares to
at some point succeed his ailing father, King Salman. Prince Muhammad,
who is popular among the country’s youth in expectation of economic and
social change, has already had to backtrack on some of that promised
change. Foreign lenders have moreover indicated a lack of confidence as they head for the exits rather than explore new opportunities.

The optimistic view may be that the Middle East is six years into an
era of political, economic, and social change. If historic yardsticks
are applicable, that amounts to one-third of a process of transition
that can take up to a quarter of a century to work itself out. There is
little reason to believe the next third will be any less volatile or
violent.

View PDFBESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family

Dr. James M. Dorsey, a non-resident Senior Associate at the BESA Center, is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture.Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/middle-east-hope/Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

IDF team of search and rescue experts, engineers, and medics is one of the largest international contingents in Mexico

An IDF search and
rescue crew works to extract survivors from the rubble
Photo: Reuters

As
international contingents of search and rescue personnel labored to find
and extricate survivors of the major earthquake that hit Mexico City
last week, a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck southeast of the town of
Matías Romero in Oaxaca on Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The region had already been hard-hit by a quake on Sept. 7. The official
death toll from the recent seismic events stands at 384, but given the
extent of the destruction, it is expected to rise as more casualties are
discovered.

The quake on Sept. 19 leveled 52 buildings
in the sprawling Mexican capital, leaving thousands homeless and
bringing down apartment blocks, a school and a textile factory. Mexican
soldiers, volunteers, supported by international teams, have rescued at
least 60 people from the ruins in Mexico City and surrounding towns.

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto visited quake-stricken areas of Chiapas on Saturday to pledge aid for those affected.

An IDF search and rescue team set out for
Mexico on Wednesday afternoon, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, and landed in
Mexico early Thursday. The team members have been working around the
clock under the command of Col. (res.) Dudi Mizrahi, who told Israel
Hayom, "As far as we're concerned, there is still a chance to save
lives. Rescuers can't work without the assumption that they can still
find people alive. The locals are looking to us."

Mizrahi's contingent comprises some 70
soldiers and officers, both current military personnel and reservists.
In addition to search and rescue experts, the team has brought in
pilots, engineers, and medical staff. The team members have been divided
to three main assignments: a collapsed building site where some 60
people appeared to be trapped beneath the rubble, most of whom were
thought to be alive; a collapsed six-story apartment building, where
Homefront Command soldiers used advanced technology to identify sounds
made by a trapped person they hope is still alive; and engineers who
examine buildings to determine whether they are safe for people to
enter.

"We got to a site where a lot of layers of
concrete had collapsed, with about 60 people trapped, most of whom I
believe are still alive," Mizrahi said.

"The Mexicans didn't know how to handle it,
and we explained that there are techniques for approaching the site,
even though it was complicated."

At the second site, where special acoustic
equipment picked up the sounds of tapping by a trapped person, the
rescuers are still working fervently.

"The rescuers are tired, but extremely
motivated. In Haiti, for example, we rescued someone who had
been trapped for seven days. We have at least another two and a half
days of work ahead of us. The difficult sights and the
psychological stress of dealing with bodies and stenches is still ahead
of us," Mizrahi said.

"To the Mexicans, the Israeli engineers'
work is of the utmost importance. We are getting a lot of help from the
Jewish community, which is 45,000 strong and is providing us with
amazing support. They gave us space in one of the Jewish community
centers, they're surrounding us with love, and providing us with food.
The [rest of] the locals are also welcoming us with open arms, and every
time an Israeli soldier goes by, they clap. It's flattering and
charming."

Mizrahi said that Mexicans are throwing
themselves into the rescue efforts: "There are thousands of people in
the streets lending a hand. They've opened civilian aid centers, and
anyone who donates so much as a bag of rice gets a round of applause."

Mizrahi said his team members "left home at
a moment's notice, in the middle of preparations for the holiday, but
with great love. Given an opportunity like this to provide assistance,
there was no question or dilemma. It's a privilege to save lives, even
when it's at a distance of thousands of kilometers from home.

"We've brought the best technology with us,
and it's a great privilege for us to be part of this effort. The
Israeli people should be proud that they have a Homefront Command that
manages to make such a big impact with only 70 people, thousands of
kilometers away from home."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke
with Israeli Ambassador to Mexico Yoni Peled on Saturday, as well as
with Mizrahi, and congratulated them both.

"What you are doing is a mitzvah. You are
shining Israel's light in the world, a big light. It is important from a
humanitarian standpoint and also to show the world the true Israel. You
are making the State of Israel very proud. Be blessed and return home
safely," Netanyahu told them.

The IDF team is not the only Israeli
delegation on the ground in Mexico. A search and rescue team from the
Israel-based iAID international humanitarian agency led by Eran Magen,
who is coordinating the organization's work with the Mexican
government's emergency crews and the IDF contingent, is also providing
aid.

Pajamas Media and Israel National News (Arutz Sheva) both
ran a story this month that U.S. National Security Adviser McMaster
sparked an argument with an Israeli delegation during an August meeting
to discuss the terrorist group Hezbollah. According to the reports, the
argument was sparked by McMaster bringing an unwanted NSA official to
the meeting and his denying that Hezbollah was a terrorist group.

In a statement to The Lid,
the spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in DC called the reports “totally
false,” and in a separate discussion, an NSC official who was at the
meeting says the NSC employee in question wasn’t in the meeting.

Per
each of the reports, National Security Advisor. McMaster invited NSC
Senior Director on Counter-Terrorism Mustafa Javed Ali to the meeting
with Israel that took place in the White House. Supposedly Mr. Ali is
against designing Hezbollah as a terrorist group. According to the
reports, the Israeli delegation demanded that Ali leave the room.

Both PJM and Israel National News claimed that McMaster yelled at the Israeli delegation at the meeting, PJM claimed that McMaster seemed to “blow off” Israel’s worry that a safe zone in Syria for refugees would become a safe zone for Hezbollah to operate. Israel National News went further saying that McMaster claimed that Hezbollah was not a terror group.

Both stories are false.

I
spoke to Itai Bardov, spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in
Washington and asked him if he could address the above charges on the
record. He responded with this statement:

The allegations in the article relating to Israel are totally false.Israel never asked for Mustafa Ali to not attend a meeting on Hezbollah, Syria or any other matter.Israel
is not aware of any Trump administration official that does not
consider Hezbollah a terror organization, and General McMaster never
yelled at Israeli officials.Israel appreciates General McMaster’s
efforts to strengthen the US-Israel relationship and looks forward to
continuing to work closely with the Trump administration to counter the
threats posed by Iran and its terror proxy Hezbollah.

An
NSC official who was at the meeting confirmed to me that the U.S.
delegation didn’t plan to bring Mustafa Javed Ali to the meetings,
didn’t bring Mr. Ali to the meeting, and at no time did he attempt to
come into the meeting. A pretty Shermanesque declaration.

Finally, on August 18th, the day after the meeting (the PJM
article said it was the week of August 27), Jason Greenblatt and
advisor for President Trump on Israel, posted a picture of everyone at
the meeting (see below) Mr. Ali was not in this “team picture.”

This
is the second time in a month that an enemy of General McMaster within
the White House (or possibly one who just left) created a story about
McMaster and Israel that was false. The first claim was that he was an
enemy of Israel which was also proven to be nonsense (read the linked article Slandering a Good Name to see how fake news works). Sheldon Adelson, who was said by JTA to be against him, has disavowed the campaign against McMaster.

The
Jewish High Holiday period begins with Rosh Hashanah and continues with
the fast of Yom Kippur on September 29th. During that time we are
supposed to apologize to the people who we have wronged and begin
atoning for our sins. Whether Jewish or not, I recommend to this teller
of McMaster tales that this would be a great time to stop with the
slanders and atone for their wrong-doings.Jason D. Greenblatt‏Verified account @jdgreenblatt45Aug 17Organized important bilateral meeting between @WHNSC / US National Security team and our counterparts from Israel at the @WhiteHouse today.

Team PhotoJeff Dunetz, editor/publisher of the blog "The Lid," Jeff is also a contributing
reporter to TruthRevolt.org and MRCTV.org. He is also the political
columnist for The Jewish Star, and co-host of the weekly radio show, The
Hump Day News Report on the 405 Radio Network.
Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21050 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Iraqi Kurdistan region will be holding a referendum on independence on September 25, 2017. While Beijing fears that Kurdish independence could fuel separatist movements within China,a Kurdish state could be a net positive for the Asian giant.

This past June, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani announced that on September 25, 2017, a referendum on independence would be held on the Kurdistan region of Iraq. The referendum will take place within the borders of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, as well as in disputed territories that have been under de facto Kurdish control since their liberation from ISIS (e.g., Kirkuk). Kurds will vote to decide whether autonomous Kurdistan should disengage from Iraq and become independent or remain within the Iraqi state.The referendum is neither a declaration of independence nor a trigger of immediate change in the nature of Kurdish sovereignty in northern Iraq, since the vote lacks both a legal framework for binding implementation and support from the international community. However, the referendum will be the Iraqi Kurds’ first concrete step towards realizing their over-a-century-old dream of an independent Kurdish state. The vote will likely give the Kurds more bargaining power vis-à-vis Baghdad and the international community once the fight against ISIS has been concluded.The question of independence has existed ever since the Kurds established a semi-autonomous region in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War. These aspirations have gained momentum during the current period of turmoil, which has seen the outbreak of civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, and the aftershocks of the “Arab Spring.” The Kurds took advantage of the instability to seize an opportunity for radical change in the balance of power in the Middle East.More importantly, the major role the Kurds have played in the US-backed campaign to defeat ISIS has brought them growing international attention and wider acknowledgment of their achievements and national rights. However, without international recognition and support, Kurdish statehood will remain a dream.

China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council (UNSC) with ambitions to become a major player in the Middle East, will need to take a clear position on the “Kurdish question.” The issue is not simply a matter of regional security and stability. It is also a matter of international law and moral norms that involve Chinese interests and national security.In the post-Cold War era, China has become increasingly engaged in the Middle East due to broader national interests – namely, to continue its economic growth, preserve its Communist-ruled political system, defend its sovereignty from foreign threats and other interference in its internal affairs, and expand its global influence as a rising economic and political power.Beijing’s policy on the Kurdish question is part of its overall policy on Iraq, which in turn is part of its policy towards the Middle East in general, which in turn is part of its foreign policy at the global level.

Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Beijing has strongly opposed separatist movements abroad as a means of gaining support for its own opposition to separatist movements within China. Beijing officially considers separatism one of the “three evil forces,” along with terrorism and extremism. This reflects its uncompromising adherence to the maintenance of territorial integrity at all costs – primarily with regard to Taiwan, but also to Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. China avers that self-determination should not necessarily involve national independence, and that stateless nations should not necessarily form or be given states.

Beijing’s policy on the Kurdish question is part of its overall policy on Iraq, which in turn is part of its policy towards the Middle East in general, which in turn is part of its foreign policy at the global level. The core of China’s official Middle East policy is to maintain a stable and peaceful regional environment that facilitates continued domestic reform and development. On the matter of Middle East hotspots, Chinese policy is to promote peace and the reasonable settlement of disputes through dialogue and negotiation, with an emphasis placed on the role of the UN Security Council.Beijing has officially supported the Iraqi central government in its efforts to safeguard sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity and establish respect, equality, and mutual benefit based on bilateral relations. It actively supports political reconstruction and national reconciliation, as well as Iraq’s counter-terrorism efforts in fighting ISIS. China firmly advocates the adoption of a peaceful democratic process to achieve security and stability in Iraq.However, there are several interests underlying Beijing’s Kurdish policy. First, an independent and friendly Kurdish state – particularly one China helped create – could provide Beijing with a new ally in the Middle East and a new instrument of influence in the region. Second, despite Beijing’s official opposition to separatist movements, Chinese companies have strong energy and economic stakes in Kurdistan, making it different from other such movements. Third, Beijing has found the Kurds to be a reliable regional ally as well as a lethal and valuable asset against ISIS and al-Qaeda. Fourth, the Kurdish issue provides China with leverage against Turkey, which continues to host Uyghur separatists and organizations. Fifth and most important, China is interested in Iraqi Kurdistan’s rich oilfields, which could diversify its oil supplies.With all that said, an independent Kurdistan would have a range of negative implications for Chinese interests and national security. First, an independent Kurdish state could unleash regional instability that would be detrimental to China’s economic and strategic interests, and which could encourage other separatist movements (notably the Uyghurs and the Tibetans) to fight for their own causes. Second, the birth of a new Kurdish state would face strong opposition from the major regional states, produce greater instability, and possibly be accompanied by war. Baghdad, Tehran, Damascus, and Ankara are all opposed to an independent Kurdish state for the same reason the prospect gives China pause: it could encourage separatism among their own minorities. Support for an independent Kurdistan could harm Beijing’s relations with regional powers that it has spent years attempting to cultivate.Kurdish secession could destabilize the rump Iraqi state politically, economically, and militarily. Beijing is not in the least interested in further destabilizing Iraq or in alienating Baghdad. Moreover, Washington has historically shunned the idea of breaking apart the Iraqi state out of fear of setting a precedent for secessionism throughout the region.However, the behavior of President Trump, who is both malleable and volatile, may prove favorable for Iraqi Kurds’ aspirations towards independence. It is quite clear that if a Kurdish state emerges, it will be friendly to the US, which will have important consequences for its regional interests and national security.The emergence of an independent Kurdistan would have favorable implications for the Western powers: it would likely be relatively well-governed and stable, and it would be pro-Western. Such developments could significantly weaken Chinese economic and strategic interests in the region.The Kurdish referendum cannot lead to independence without international recognition, a crucial pre-condition to full statehood. Since the KRG is located in a war-torn country and in a region of economic and geopolitical significance, it will need support and legitimacy to be conferred by both global and regional powers.Beijing’s position on the Kurdish question is intricate. China has traditionally had friendly relations with the Kurds, and joined the other four members of the UN Security Council in opening a consulate in Erbil. However, Beijing opposes a unilateral Kurdish declaration of independence. It will support an independent Kurdish state only if it emerges with the consent of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad and other countries in the region.China’s dilemma with regard to the Kurds is not necessarily insoluble. Beijing could opt to allow the emergence of an independent Kurdistan while remaining rhetorically opposed to it at the same time. That kind of approach has been a common tactic of Chinese diplomacy in the region.A BESA Center Perspectives Paper, published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler FamilyDr. Mordechai Chaziza is a senior lecturer in Political Science at Ashkelon Academic College, specializing in Chinese foreign and strategic relations. Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/21057 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

International Police Organization allows PA bid for membership to go to vote which could allow PA to issue arrest warrants for Israelis.

Interpol

iStock

The Israel effort to prevent the Palestinian Authority (PA) from
joining Interpol, the International Police Organization, has been
unsuccessful so far.

This afternoon it became clear that the attempt to have the Interpol
Executive Committee reject the PA's application had failed. Israel will
therefore have to direct its efforts towards Interpol’s General
Assembly, which will convene for its annual meeting in China tomorrow
(Tuesday) and vote on new members.

The General Assembly is expected to approve the PA's bid to join the international law enforcement body.

Israel has waged a wide-spread diplomatic battle over the last
several days to prevent the PA's imitative from succeeding. Israel seeks
to strengthen the standards required to join Interpol.

The US has stood alongside Israel in seeking to convince the
organization to deny the PA's request. The US believes that allowing the
PA to join international bodies without negotiating with Israel gives
the PA incentive to avoid peace negotiations altogether and undermines
US efforts to broker a peace deal.

David Horowitz's "The Left in the University."

Below is Bruce Thornton's review of David Horowitz’s new book, “The Left in the Universities" which is volume 8 of The Black Book of the American Left, a multi-volume collection of David Horowitz's conservative writings that will, when completed, be the most ambitious effort ever undertaken to define the Left and its agenda. (Order HERE.) We encourage our readers to visit BlackBookOfTheAmericanLeft.com – which features Horowitz’s introductions to Volumes 1-8 of this 10-volume series, along with their tables of contents, reviews and interviews with the author.

The corruption of American higher education has been in the news a lot in the last few years. “Snowflakes” and “safe spaces,” crowds of thugs shutting down conservative speakers, craven administrators caving in to demands of activist students and faculty have become increasingly common since the rise of Donald Trump sparked a “resistance” movement. Even progressives who have run afoul of campus Robespierres are writing books about free speech now that their revolutionary children have started devouring their own. What David Horowitz has been warning about in his books and speeches for more than thirty years -- the ideological hijacking of the university and the betrayal of its traditional mission -- has finally grabbed the national spotlight.

The essays in his latest book, The Left in the University, are indispensable for anyone who wants to understand how we got to this pass.

The first chapter, “The Post-Modern Academy,” is a succinct analysis of the left’s takeover of the university. He starts with one of the most publicized and representative incidents that illustrates how far our campuses have descended into preposterous political correctness and left-wing shibboleths. Ward Churchill was the University of Colorado professor who called the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks “little Eichmanns,” and whose exposure in 2005 led to a national scandal when his academic and personal frauds were revealed. What is less well-known is the enthusiasm that many universities had shown in inviting Churchill to speak at their campuses -- 40 invitations before the scandal broke -- despite his vicious anti-Americanism and shoddy scholarship. As Horowitz explains, such views were “far from obscure to his academic colleagues. They reflected views comparing America to Nazi Germany that were part of the intellectual core of his academic work.” The widespread agreement with such nonsense implicated not just one rogue college professor, but “the academic culture itself.”

How did such a consensus of belief in ideas more at home in the pages Pravda or Granma happen? The Gramscian “long march through the institution” on the part of Sixties radicals began the redefinition of academic work from a search for truth according to professional norms, to a political activism that in the name of “relevance” and “social justice” shaped research and teaching to confirm leftist ideology and discredit whatever alternatives students might believe. These new academic departments and programs like Women’s Studies and Black Studies, Horowitz writes, “maintained no pretense of including intellectually diverse viewpoint or pursuing academic inquiries unconnected to the conclusions they might reach.”

That these new “disciplines” were political rather than academic was obvious in their creation, which resulted from political protests and sometimes threats of violence, most famously at Cornell, where in 1969 black radicals with loaded shotguns occupied the administration building. Soon, Horowitz continues, other “studies” like Post-Colonial Studies and Social Justice Studies proliferated to promote “narrowly one-sided political agendas,” and create “institutional settings for political indoctrination” and the “exposition and development of radical theory, and education and training of a radical cadre and the recruitment of students to radical causes.” Moreover, their claims to be pursuing “social justice” or “equality” have created an end-justifies-the-means rationalization, a “logical consequence of decades of university pandering to radical intimidators and campus criminals who regularly assault property, persons and reputations” with charges of racism, sexism, or even rape. “If the ideas are correct, it’s okay to silence anyone who disagrees.” In the last few years this phenomenon has become public knowledge, as Antifa thugs have disrupted campus events. Way back in 1998, Horowitz presciently called such behavior “brown-shirt activism.”

Horowitz in his essays frequently makes an important point: it’s not just the ideological prejudices of this or that faculty member, but a whole institutional, professional, and administrative apparatus that has made possible today’s overwhelmingly leftist and progressive university.

For example, the problem of conservative speakers being underrepresented at campus events is not a dearth of interest among students. At Vanderbilt, a conservative student group called Wake Up America was formed to invite conservative speakers to campus. But the university refused to provide the same sort of funding it gives to other student groups. When challenged, the administrator in charge of Student Life hid behind the Speakers Committee, which Horowitz describes as “a partisan student group dedicated to bringing left-wing speakers to campus.” With $63,000 a year to spend, the Committee had brought expensive lefties like James Carville and Gloria Steinem. Wake Up America, Horowitz writes, in its entire existence “has never been granted a single cent to bring conservatives” to Vanderbilt.

Such largess for leftists go beyond funds dedicated to speakers. In 2002, when Horowitz was invited, Vanderbilt disbursed over a million dollars to student groups ostensibly to promote a “diversity of activities,” in the words of the university. At the same time that Wake Up America received nothing, other identity-politics groups received over $130,000. Horowitz recounts other appearance he made across the country where left-wing speakers received tens of thousands of dollars, while his visit had to be financed by funds raised off campus. As Horowitz notes, such political bias is “completely normal in the academic world.”

The bulk of Horowitz’s book documents his efforts to get state legislatures and college administrators to adopt an Academic Bill of Rights (ABR) as a way of stopping such abuse. After some initial successes, particularly in Colorado, the campaign was stalled by relentless misrepresentation and outright lies on the part of colleges, the media, and academic organizations. For example, the ABR called for common sense principles similar to those colleges adopted over a century ago. But the principle that universities should base hiring on a candidate’s “competence and appropriate expertise in the field,” and foster “a plurality of methodologies and perspectives,” was transformed by the Colorado media into “affirmative action for conservatives.”

Most reprehensible was the reaction of the American Association of University Professors, which has long touted its dedication to academic freedom. In 1915 the AAUP promulgated a report that gave impetus to a wider recognition of the need for universities to respect the freedom of its professors to practice research without fear of retribution for challenging any ideologies, preferences, and prejudices. The AAUP report became the template for most of higher education’s policies on academic freedom.

The University of California’s Berkeley campus, for example, in 1934 established the “Sproul” rule, named for its author, university president Robert Gordon Sproul. This rule identified the function of the university as the effort “to seek and to transmit knowledge and to train students in the processes whereby truth is to be made known. To convert, or to make converts, is alien and hostile to this dispassionate duty.” If “political, social, or sectarian movements” are to be considered, they should be “dissected and examined, not taught, and the conclusion left, with no tipping of the scales, to the logic of the facts.”

In 2003, the Berkeley Faculty Senate voted 43-3 to scrap this noble aspiration. The distinction between indoctrination and education was tossed, and the faculty were made the arbiters of teaching and research standards “by reference to the professional standards” and “the expertise and authority” of the faculty, which now should govern the acquisition of knowledge. As Horowitz writes, “academic freedom is whatever the faculty says it is.” The proliferation of “studies” and programs nakedly political and designed to pursue politically correct ideology, rather than a dispassionate search for truth through disinterested professional methodologies, guaranteed that “professional standards” would be politicized. The academic freedom created to protect scholarship has now been changed to a “substitute for it -- a license for professors to do what they liked.” As a result, courses like “The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance” replace traditional history courses that present all the documented evidence of a historical event gathered by the neutral protocols governing research. The decline of professional competence, as Martin Kramer documented regarding Middle East Studies programs in his Ivory Towers on Sand, creates a vacuum filled by political ideology and faddish theory.

Of course, the AAUP, its board dominated by leftists, had long ago abandoned the principles of the 1915 report, tending instead “to overlook infringements” of it, like the excising of the Sproul rule, “and even defend them,” Horowitz writes. So it is no wonder that the AAUP went after the ABR, misrepresenting its clear meaning. During the debate over the Colorado state legislature’s bill to codify the ABR into law, the AAUP went on the offensive, calling the ABR “a grave threat to fundamental principles of academic freedom,” and recommending that it should be “strongly condemn[ed].” It also blatantly distorted the bill’s language, saying it required that “universities... maintain political pluralism,” a phrase that doesn’t appear in the bill, which called for “the fair representation of conflicting viewpoints on issues that are controversial,” as Horowitz explained. The numerous other misrepresentations that Horowitz analyzes show that the AAUP, much like the UN, no longer believes in the principles of one of its foundational documents.

With such concentrated opposition by university faculty, administrators, unions, and professional organizations, the ABR didn’t have a chance. As Horowitz writes of the AAUP response.

If any act might serve as a symbol of the problems that have beset the academy in the last thirty years -- its intense politicization and partisanship and consequent loss of scholarly perspective -- it is this unscholarly assault on a document whose philosophy, formulations and very conception have been drawn from its own statements and positions on academic freedom.

Such an abuse of language to serve power and ideology, first described by Thucydides and memorably expressed in George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” is now standard operating procedure in the American university.

Now that Donald Trump’s success has driven the academic left into even greater absurdities and thuggery, perhaps conditions are right for cleaning the Augean Stables of campus corruption. But such change will require the efforts of congressmen, state legislators, the Department of Education, university trustees, and the taxpayers who directly and indirectly fund American higher education. And we need many more champions of the university’s mission to study and teach “the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically,” as Matthew Arnold wrote.

David Horowitz has long tried to hold accountable the presumed guardians of the university’s mission. It’s time for more citizens to join him and dismantle the “stock notions and habits” of the left that are responsible for so much of our country’s political and cultural “mischief.” Reading The Left in the University is the place to start.

Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, a Research Fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, and a Professor of Classics and Humanities at the California State University. He is the author of nine books and numerous essays on classical culture and its influence on Western Civilization. His most recent book, Democracy's Dangers and Discontents (Hoover Institution Press), is now available for purchase.Source: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267959/ideological-hijacking-university-and-betrayal-its-bruce-thornton Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The real traitors are those who
refuse to look at the obvious connection between the rise of fatherless
households in the black community and the welfare state.

The pejorative "Uncle Tom" causes more damage than does the word "n——-."

The "N-word," when used by a white person as an epithet against a
black person, is an insult, designed to convey to the recipient that he
or she is a second-class citizen. It is designed to make one feel
inferior. But it hasn't worked. My parents, as did the parents of my
friends, said no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.
Lesson learned. For decades, tests measuring self-esteem show that
teenage black boys and girls test higher than do white boys and white
girls.

"Uncle Tom," on the other hand, when used by a black person as an epithet against another
black person, is designed to do one thing and one thing only — to label
that person as a traitor, a sellout, as a black person who colludes
with white racists to undermine the success of black people.

During my pre-election debate at an inner-city black church in Los
Angeles against Roland Martin of "NewsOne," a "black" news show on cable
channel TV One, Martin advised me to "get in touch with my blackness."
My crime? I supported the candidacy of Donald Trump, and predicted he
would attract a greater share of the black vote than did Mitt Romney. I
suggested that the damage done to the black family by the welfare state
was far more than the degree of racism in today's America.

Because of blacker-than-thou people like Martin, the black community is not having
a robust debate about, for example, whether there is a causal
connection between the welfare state and the growing number of
fatherless households.

How bad is this lack of critical thinking? During the O.J. Simpson
murder trial, a New Jersey high school teacher wrote about the reaction
to the case by his mostly black and brown students. Out of 110 students,
only four thought Simpson actually did it. Whenever anyone dared
suggest an alternative theory, that possibly Simpson himself might have
murdered two people, he or she was denounced as a sympathizer for the
wrong side. Several thought Kato Kaelin, Simpson's houseguest, did it.
Another thought O.J. Simpson's friend Al Cowlings did it, despite a
complete and utter lack of evidence. The teacher observed that the black
females in his class exerted what he called "social control" over the
others in the class to induce unanimity on Simpson's innocence.

Because of the intolerance of different points of view in the black
community, we are not having a fact-based debate about the allegation of
"systemic" racism in the criminal justice system. The real "traitors"
are those who continue to push a false narrative about the alleged
"proliferation" of anti-black police brutality, when, according to the
Centers for Disease Control, police killings of blacks are down nearly
75 percent since 1968. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel admitted that the
Black Lives Matter movement has made officers reluctant to proactively
police, and that cops have become increasingly passive: "There's no
doubt Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, Cleveland, in my view, have put the
genie out of the bottle. ... Unless we deal with backing them up, the
gang members know (police) are not putting their hands on them because
they don't want to be prosecuted, whether it be by public opinion or by
the court. ... We have allowed our police department to get fetal, and
it is having a direct consequence. ... They have pulled back from the
ability to interdict. ... They don't want to be a news story themselves,
they don't want their career ended early, and it's having an impact."
Crime in many areas of the country has increased, victimizing the very
people the Black Lives Matter movement claims to care about.

The real traitors are those who refuse to have a conversation about
race-based preferences, even though those admitted to college under
affirmative action are far likelier to drop out of college due to a
mismatch of skills and school.

The real traitors are those who
refuse to look at the obvious connection between the rise of fatherless
households in the black community and the welfare state. In 1965, 25
percent of black kids were born outside of wedlock. That figure today is
71 percent. Today 29 percent of white kids are born outside of wedlock.
Yet we do not have a serious debate about the causal connection between
the welfare state and the No. 1 domestic problem in the country — the
rise of fatherless households. But to even raise this issue makes a
black person a "traitor" who is "blaming the victim"?

The
executive editor of The New York Times, Dean Baquet, a black man,
recently acknowledged left-wing intolerance. "The left," he said, "as a
rule, does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement." The black left, as
a rule, does not believe that there is such a thing as thoughtful disagreement.

Larry ElderSource: http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267958/uncle-tom-and-n-word-larry-elder Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson calls out United Nations' hypocrisy.

Tommy Robinson, a prominent British nationalist activist, wants to
know why the United Nations focuses solely on the Palestinians despite
their history of terrorism while ignoring other oppressed minorities in
the world, such as Balochistan, which has been occupied by Pakistan
since 1947.

Wearing a 'Free Balochistan' T-shirt, the English Defense League
founder describes the history of the beleaguered Balochistan, detailing
the oppression he says the Baloch people have suffered from under
Pakistan and noting the five major conflicts that were fought between
Balochistan and Pakistan. According to Robinson, Pakistan benefits
tremendously from Balochistan's natural resources while denying the
proceeds to the native people.

"The West is silent about this, total silence," charged Robinson.
"The media is not interested in real struggles. Where have they been on
this issue? Why don't they talk about this when they constantly cover
Jewish people defending themselves against Palestinian terrorists?"

Balochistan was annexed to Pakistan after it split off from India in
1947 and makes up 44% of its territory, but according to Robinson, "it's
not a surprise that the Left wastes its time defending barbaric actions
against the only democracy in the Middle East".

Robinsons has been a prominent activist on what he calls "the Muslims
waging war on England". He was one of the principal founders of the
English Defense League in 2009, which quickly became known for its large
street demonstrations against radical Islam.

Tzvi LevSource: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/235888 Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The
tragic truth is, the most dangerous place for a black American is not
in the presence of a police officer. The most dangerous place for a
black American -- especially for young black males -- is a black
neighborhood.

Foolish athletes (and their like-minded playmates) should direct their political and social ire elsewhere. Instead, they’ve joined their Hollywood cohorts as mouthpieces for the Democratic Party.

Take Colin Kaepernick. His failed efforts at protesting during the National Anthem were predicated upon a lie. After his initial protest in the 2016 preseason, NFL Media reported:

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

In other words, Kaepernick has bought the lies of Black Lives Matter hook, line, and sinker. As I noted last year, the lie is this:

There’s widespread and institutionalized racism inside America’s law enforcement agencies, and black Americans are especially targeted. This racism has led to the deaths of a disproportionate number of innocent black Americans. In order to stop this heinous activity, we need more gun control legislation, more wealth redistribution, more job and education programs, and thus Americans need to elect more Democrats.

As has been refuted ad nauseam -- most notably by Heather MacDonald -- few things are further from the truth. The tragic truth is, the most dangerous place for a black American is not in the presence of a police officer. The most dangerous place for a black American -- especially for young black males -- is a black neighborhood. Again, as a 2016 report by the Manhattan Institute reveals:

In 2013, homicide was the leading cause of death among African-Americans aged 15–35.

During 1990–2008, for 93 percent of black homicide victims, the perpetrator was also black.

In 2009, in the 75 largest U.S. counties, blacks were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders, and 45 percent of assaults -- despite constituting 15 percent of the population in those counties.

In 2014, in New York City, blacks committed 75 percent of shootings and 70 percent of robberies, while constituting 23 percent of the population.

During 2005-2014, blacks were also responsible for 40 percent of murders of police officers nationwide.

And perhaps the most shocking statistic of all: Black men in the U.S. are half as likely to die if they are in prison than if they are not. And why are these black neighborhoods so dangerous? Again, the breakdown of the black family.

It has been widely reported for years now that the out-of-wedlock birth rate among American blacks is over 70 percent. Almost always, mothers are left to raise their children alone. In U.S. cities, where the violence and poverty among U.S. blacks is most pronounced, the out-of-wedlock birth rate is even worse. For example, in Chicago about 80 percent of black children are born to single mothers. Today, only 17 percent of American black teenagers reach age 17 in a family with their biological parents married to each other. In no state in the U.S does black family intactness exceed 30 percent.

Among many other sad outcomes, fatherlessness is one of the leading predictors of future criminal activity. Children living with their married biological parents are the least likely to commit criminal acts. On the other hand, children from single-parent homes (almost always without a father) are

more likely to… engage in questionable behavior, struggle academically, and become delinquent. Problems with children from fatherless families can continue into adulthood. These children are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact families, and have the highest rates of incarceration in the United States.

Far more rampant than any form of racist police discrimination is the plague of fatherlessness in the black community. Yet, when it comes to this grave matter, Colin Kaepernick and his NFL ilk are virtually silent. In fact, with their sexually immoral lifestyles and lack of devoted marriages, many of them are doing nothing but perpetuating the problem.

The same moral ignorance pervasive in the NFL is present in the NBA (and virtually every other prominent entertainment arena) as well. After an announcement that they would vote on whether to attend the White House invitation to celebrate their NBA championship, the Golden State Warriors’ biggest star, Stephen Curry, in declaring he would vote against the visit, said,

We don’t stand for basically what our president… the things that he said and the things that he hasn’t said in the right terms that we won’t stand for it. And by acting and not going, hopefully that will inspire some change when it comes to what we tolerate in this country and what is accepted and what we turn a blind eye to.

Ahhh, “tolerance.” Of course, after winning the championship in 2015, Curry and his teammates had no hesitation in visiting the Obama White House. This is particularly revealing because, like Kaepernick, Curry has long been outspoken about his Christian faith. After winning the NBA’s MVP for the 2014-2015 season, Curry said,

First and foremost I have to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for blessing me with the talents to play this game, with the family to support me, day in, day out. I’m his humble servant right now and I can’t say enough how important my faith is to who I am and how I play the game.

Curry’s shoe deal with Under Armour includes shoes that contain “4:13” and the quote, “I can do all things” which is a direct reference to Philippians 4:13. In spite of his demonstrative Christian faith, Curry seems to have a “blind eye” when it comes to the Democrat Party’s support of killing children in the womb, gender perversions, homosexuality, pornography, a redefinition of marriage, asinine climate policies, an enslaving welfare state, and so on. How “tolerant” of him.

In support of Trump’s NBA critics, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said “I am proud of our players for taking an active role in their communities and continuing to speak out on critically important issues.” Do you think Silver would have issued such a statement if, after the infamous Obergefell ruling, NBA players would have blasted the Obama administration for such an egregiously mistaken sea-change in legal policy? Me neither.

One of the greatest lies of the modern era is that consenting adults have the “right” to do whatever they wish in the sexual realm. This has led to many of the above perverse policies backed by the Democratic Party. Other than the NFL’s Ben Watson, I can think of no active professional athlete who stands against the sexual lies of the left (and actually lives it), and who outspokenly stands for the truth on life, marriage, and family.

Whatever a morally minded -- especially a so-called Christian -- person’s problem with the current President, those problems should pale in comparison to the immorality perpetrated by modern Democrats. Instead of using their high-profile platform to speak against this evil, riddled with liberals, the American entertainment industry is typically an accomplice in this evil, or at best, complicity silent.

If you want to stand against something -- especially in the political realm -- Mr. Kaepernick and Mr. Curry, look to your left.